| 00:00 | is a card that I personally despise because I like to do fun things, cast really big expensive spells, and just do ridiculous things in Magic. Unfortunately, blue spells, particularly Force of Negation, do not let me do that. Blue players let me have some fun once in a while, please. Today is not about my opinion of Force of Negation. If I were to surmise the overall community opinion about the card, it tends to be a love-hate; you either love it or hate it. It reminds me of a certain product from the UK called Marmite. If you have never seen that before, it is a yeast extract made from the bottom of beer barrels. It is quite disturbing what it actually is, but the slogan of that product is "you either love it or you hate it". That is exactly the same with Force of Negation. In today's video we are going to be asking: Force of Negation: is it Modern's big savior or Modern's big mistake? |
| 00:57 | Before we get on to the discussion piece today about "Force of Negation (FoN): Modern's great savior or its biggest mistake?" we are not having a conversation about the card being banned. Even somebody who hates the card as much as myself thinks that under no circumstances is that a broken card; under no circumstances should it be banned, and whilst everybody is entitled to their opinion, if you are going to leave comments down below saying it should be banned, I humbly disagree and I think most people would agree that you are probably wrong. But just because a card should not be banned does not necessarily mean it is a good thing for the format. For example, my overall opinion is, and you may disagree with this, I do not think is a good thing for the format. It does not mean it should be banned, but I do not think it is a good thing that Tron decks, which are playing colorless decks, should be rewarded with very powerful removal spells. Instead, we are looking at FoN as an overall product of the format. Has it really improved Modern? Has it actually deteriorated and taken decks away from Modern or made certain strategies completely unplayable now? That is what we are going to be discussing; an overall opinion on FoN. |
| 02:02 | One final piece of housekeeping before we get into today's video. If you are not subscribed down below to Cardmarket, then go and hit the subscribe button. I should come up with a much fancier way of saying it, but you know what? Just go and subscribe. Also, hit the thumbs up while you are there. I do not know what Cardmarket's overall KPI is for this year, but I want over 15 000 subscribers by the end of the year. I feel a failure if we do not get to 15 000. Do me this service, go down below, hit the subscribe button, and that way you can see all of our lovely content coming up every single week. Let's go and discuss Force of Negation. |
| 02:33 | At the time of recording this video, FoN is 85 tickets on MTGO, and just a few weeks ago – late 2020 was approaching – 100 tickets on MTGO for a single copy. That is rather expensive for a single rare card in Modern. That is going to lead us onto our first discussion point of the day. FoN's price tag. I used to think it was so expensive because it was just a broken card. A ridiculously good card that probably should not have been in the format, and hands up, I was wrong. The fact of the matter is FoN is so expensive because of the set it was printed in and most blue decks do want to have it in their deck. But just because a card wants to go into a certain color type, it does not necessarily mean it is broken. Otherwise, would be banned because if you are playing red you are probably playing Lightning Bolts. The price tag of the card is not because of it being broken as such – although is a very good card and needs to be a staple of most blue decks in Modern – I think it goes down to the fact that it is in very high demand, but it is in rather low supply. It is not down to the card being broken although, even if it had a very high supply, the card would still be pushing 20+ tickets anyway on MTGO. |
| 03:40 | There is a counter argument to that. Most decks in Modern right now that are playing FoN are playing the likes of bant or four-color , and not everybody can afford those decks because they are ridiculously expensive and you cannot even rent them with the rental services on MTGO. The fact that FoN is so expensive is a bit more surprising because not everybody can afford the decks that play it. But that is just me trying to balance the argument overall. Let's be honest, the price tag of a card does not really reflect how broken, how good or even how bad a card is. Let's get away from the price tag of FoN as I think we can all agree that the price tag of a card does not necessarily reflect how broken, not broken or anywhere in between, a card particularly is; it is just down to supply and demand. Let's go on and talk about how FoN – if not currently, in the future – might police the format the same way as does in Legacy. Force of Will is the safety valve on Legacy, and that is where FoN might be going with Modern. |
| 04:34 | In recent years we have had Oops! All Spells and Neobrand. There has always been the odd deck here and there that can pop up and win on turn one, and they are becoming a little bit more consistent as well as appearing a bit more often. I can see, in the future with more sets being printed, FoN actually being a card that is needed by Modern to really police the format. As a counter argument to that, that does mean just like in Legacy to police the format you are going to have to play blue. At that point, if I am going to have to play blue in a certain format then, why do not I just play Legacy instead of Modern? I guess Legacy is more expensive. Our next point is going to be that actually, FoN has helped a lot of decks rise to the top. For example, a card that I love playing, . U/R Living End right now is a legitimate deck in the format. I am not just talking a good Living End deck. I am talking a good deck in the format, and FoN has really been the driving force behind that. |
| 05:25 | There was a massive counter argument to that – do not get me wrong, I think it is great that FoN or any card helps any strategy get pushed to the top tiers in Modern – the fact of the matter is: FoN has also been responsible for a lot of decks just going away. We think about the likes of Mono-red Prison for example. That is a deck which had to do something really impactful on turn one or turn two at the absolute latest, and now, although it is still a viable deck, it is nowhere near as powerful. It cannot catch people out as it did previously because FoN exists. We have two points left. Our penultimate point is going to be that, at the time FoN was printed, blue decks did need a lot of help – particularly blue control decks. While I do think we have gone too far the other way and the fact that we have printed too many cards that really help out blue, it cannot really be argued that blue, at that time, did need help. It was just an awful color to play outside of being supportive or part of a combo. |
| 06:20 | The problem was in the format. At that particular time still exists . Let's be honest, the format was a lot more diverse it was a lot more different types of strategy – which is both a good and a bad thing, but at the same time, the format was incredibly consistent and incredibly powerful early in the game. Blue was way too reactive. Even with blue decks like Merfolk, it was maybe a bit too reactive at times, and it just could not get on board early enough. If you got to the late game of blue, it is just as good then as is now, but blue needed to get a turn or two quicker to really catch up with many strategies in the format. Moving on to our penultimate point, and I think this is going to be the big discussion piece in assessing whether FoN was Modern's biggest mistake or Modern's big savior, and it is down to the timing of the printing of the card. |
| 07:03 | What do I mean by that? FoN was printed in 2019 in Modern Horizons at the same time that was printed. We had Hogaak Summer which was rightfully banned, but at the same time that it was banned, Faithless Looting was banned. We could have a discussion about if it should or should not have been banned, but it is pretty much irrelevant. The fact of the matter is: it was banned. Not only have you banned Mox Opal and Faithless Looting which are all about getting your particular deck onboard early, underneath those mid-range, and do something very powerful in the early parts of the game, you are taking the legs from underneath those decks. Think about it, Harden Affinity now, where is it? It sort of exists, but it is nowhere near as good. The landscape of Modern completely changed in a very short period of time because of two major bannings. Three of you count . But it is not just those bannings which have really warped the landscape of the format. In the recent fire era of Magic where cards have always had to be interactive, fun and repetitive, or whatever it is, then you have Uro printed, you have had Oko, , , , . |
| 08:07 | So many of these spells have just helped out blue strategies, whether it is deliberately or not. The fact the matter is it has helped out blue strategies probably more than any other color in any format. Going beyond the ban and the recent printings, there is also the unbans which have really helped the blue strategies more than anybody. You could argue helped out Jund, but in reality, blue has been helped out even by the unbans in recent years. being unbanned has had a big impact on blue being able to play a threat early in the game – we will talk about that later on. helps the death and taxes, which is great for that particular strategy, but it also helped out the blue decks that puts a legitimate threat early in the game that has to be answered. All of a sudden, imagine you have got a seesaw here. We are aiming for a balanced format. If go back a couple of years, I do not think we can disagree that Dredge with Faithless Looting, Mox Opal in Affinity, Lantern Control or some random artifact deck it is pretty safe to say that they were heavily dominating the format in one way or another. There were other strategies around at that time, but it was mainly these guys having a big impact on the format. |
| 09:07 | Now, we have ban, which means that actually it is a little bit worse; then we have got FoN, Teferies being imprinted Jace, the Mind Sculptor, and , then Aether Gust, do not forget . At this point, you have got blue decks right now. I think they are in a similar position to where Dredge and those Mox Opal decks were back then. I do not think they are quite that bad yet, but they are approaching that level because they just have too much. I am not saying all of these cards that help out FoN or blue strategies, in general, should not have been printed. We said earlier that blue did need help in the format, and I think we cannot disagree with that one. But when you consider that Mox Opal was banned, Faithless Looting was banned – all of these recent printings which really have warped the formats anyway – and then you have FoN, it looks more powerful because of printings and bannings and unbannings than it probably could have been. Sometimes that is where people get a misconception about FoN being a big problem in the format. How it should not have been printed. I do not think FoN was a mistake, I just think the actual timing of the printing was not the best because the format was already being warped anyway. Then, you got this ridiculously Legacy-level, powerful spell being printed. |
| 10:17 | You may be asking, "why are we talking about FoN? Surely it is Uro that is the problem right now, surely is , surely it is those are the three big cards". Those are three cards you could talk about being banned, but I do not think you really talk about FoN being banned. That is why we are really talking about that today, but also, ignore the power level of those three particular cards. Think about what FoN adds to blue decks when blue decks Modern have never had this. With recent princes, it makes FoN even stronger than it realistically should be. In the short-term, FoN is not really acting as a safety valve on the format, instead, it is just enabling Uro, Jace, and all of these ridiculous things that, traditionally, you should be punished for playing in Modern. Traditionally, you should be punished for advancing your board state that significantly, and with FoN you do not really get punished unless you are already really far behind. |
| 11:08 | Getting back to my original point, do I think FoN is a massive mistake in Modern? The card itself absolutely not. The card – in the future especially – will be good for the format. In the short-term, probably not so much, but you know what? It is still not broken. It is not breaking anything. It just advances some ridiculous things. Do I think FoN is the savior for Modern? In the present? No, in fact, I will be leaning more towards it being a mistake than a savior, but I do think in the future when Modern keeps advancing to be a more consistent turn one to turn too, I do think FoN will be able to really police those particular strategies. Anyway, guys, that was me Dan, MTG Tavern having a big discussion piece for Cardmarket today. I hope you enjoyed this video. Do not forget to leave a comment down below, tell me what you think about FoN in the format. Do you think it is perfectly fine? I am leaning towards more people saying it is perfectly fine in the format. Do you think it is a massive mistake? You are entitled to your own opinion. I will see you next time guys. |
